In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, the Vatican Dicastery for Integral Human Development called upon the Church to live out its call as a healing community. Today, when one in five Americans lives with mental illness, and one in three report serious loneliness, what does it mean for the Church to be a healing community?
Sponsored by the Fiat Program on Faith and Mental Health, this panel considers how the Church can better accompany persons and families living with the experience of mental illness. Drawing from the wisdom of theology, neuroscience, and the practice of pastoral care, our panelists discuss how priests, lay ministers, and all people can strengthen a culture of belonging that both reflects and participates in our sacramental communion within the Body of Christ. Moderated by Beth Hlabse ’11, M.S., LMHCA, program director of the Fiat Program on Faith and Mental Health at the McGrath Institute for Church Life.
Thanks for listening! The ThinkND Podcast is brought to you by ThinkND, the University of Notre Dame's online learning community. We connect you with videos, podcasts, articles, courses, and other resources to inspire minds and spark conversations on topics that matter to you — everything from faith and politics, to science, technology, and your career.
In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, the Vatican Dicastery for Integral Human Development called upon the Church to live out its call as a healing community. Today, when one in five Americans lives with mental illness, and one in three report serious loneliness, what does it mean for the Church to be a healing community?
Sponsored by the Fiat Program on Faith and Mental Health, this panel considers how the Church can better accompany persons and families living with the experience of mental illness. Drawing from the wisdom of theology, neuroscience, and the practice of pastoral care, our panelists discuss how priests, lay ministers, and all people can strengthen a culture of belonging that both reflects and participates in our sacramental communion within the Body of Christ. Moderated by Beth Hlabse ’11, M.S., LMHCA, program director of the Fiat Program on Faith and Mental Health at the McGrath Institute for Church Life.
Thanks for listening! The ThinkND Podcast is brought to you by ThinkND, the University of Notre Dame's online learning community. We connect you with videos, podcasts, articles, courses, and other resources to inspire minds and spark conversations on topics that matter to you — everything from faith and politics, to science, technology, and your career.
Friends, hello and welcome to The Church, The Healing Community. I'm grateful to be with you all today to reflect together in a practical way on what is the call of the church. in the midst of what's being described as a mental health crisis. My name is Beth Labsee, and I have the honor of directing the Fiat Program on Faith and Mental Health, an initiative here at the McGrath Institute for Church Life. Based at the University of Notre Dame, the McGrath Institute partners with Catholic dioceses, parishes, and schools around the country to address pastoral challenges with theological depth and rigor. We endeavor to connect the Catholic intellectual life with the life of the Church so as to form faithful Catholic leaders for service to the Church in the world. And it's been through the Institute's service to the Church and attention to the needs and experiences of the body of Christ that we came to discern the need for a more dedicated effort to draw on the resources of our faith. In order to support persons living with mental illness and their families and to promote a deeper culture of care and communion within the church. So from this discernment was born the FIAT program on faith and mental health. It's a focused initiative whereby we at the McGrath Institute really work to support the church in responding to the mental health crisis. A few words to get us started in reflection before we enter more fully into the webinar and I have the chance to introduce our three panelists who are with us today. So since the pandemic, we've seen an increased number of persons, including children and adolescents, identifying symptoms of depression and anxiety. And on the whole, reports of serious loneliness are on the rise. But. We were seeing an increase in these symptoms even prior to the pandemic. So today we'll consider, is there a role for the church in caring for persons and families living with serious mental illness? And if so, what is it? Today we'll talk about how the role of the church is not to supplant or replace good psychological care, but rather to provide a supportive community that participates in and reflects the sacramental life of the church. We'll discuss how ministers, whether they're priests, deacons, lay folks working at a parish or diocesan level, or volunteers, can provide greater support. But we'll also spend a lot of time talking about how all of us, those in the pews, can provide greater support for one another. This is especially timely in the context of the Eucharistic revival, as we reflect on what it is to be a Eucharistic people. The Eucharist ultimately reveals to us our identity as being one body in Christ. St. Paul, in the first letter to the Corinthians, expresses how when one member of the body suffers, all suffer. But if one is honored I'll share in its joy. So we'll think through what it means to live out this expression of our Eucharist identity in the way we care for one another, especially how we share in friendship with those who live with serious mental illness and with their loved ones. In Deus Caritas Est, Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that Eucharistic communion includes the reality of being loved and of loving others in turn. Therefore, a Eucharist which does not pass over into the concrete practices of love is intrinsically fragmented. So we'll consider how those concrete practices of love, what they are, and how can we better care for one another. So with that, I'm delighted to introduce our three panelists. Our panelists include Sophia Carrazza. Sophia is a Marshall Scholar at the University of Cambridge, pursuing a PhD in the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences unit, and draws a wealth of wisdom, both from neuroscience as well as just a lived experience of our Catholic faith. Louis Damani Jones is a behavioral health therapist with SSM Health in the St. Louis area, and Louis brings some beautiful experiences Clinical experience, ranging from service and emergency room units, community based settings, and inpatient psychiatric care. And last but not least, we have with us Dr. Leonard DiLorenzo, who directs our undergraduate studies here at the McGrath Institute for Church Life, where he serves also as Academic Director for Notre Dame Vision, and directs our Sullivan Family Saints Initiative, in addition to hosting one of my favorite podcasts, Church Life Today. So friends, Today we're talking about the church as a healing community, but healing can be a rather loaded word, oftentimes misconstrued or misunderstood. And when I first got into working as a mental health therapist, I found myself often asking, what do we mean by healing? And I found that within the Catholic Church, we have a quite a rich tradition around healing, which is broader than what I'd originally thought when first equating healing to perhaps a miraculous cure or a cure in general. So, I wondered, Lewis, if you could talk to us about what healing might mean in the lives of those who you care for in direct psychiatric and inpatient settings.
Louis Damani Jones, M.S.W.:thank you for that. And, it's a huge question. And the first thing that came to mind is the importance of what you might call a recovery orientation. So in the, the view in the past of some serious mental illness, the idea was, rather deterministic and fatalistic, right? You have this, basically we just have to manage it, put you here in this location and, hopefully, you can just stay here for the rest of your life. essentially. and now, we're highly encouraged to have a recovery orientation, and I think, like you're saying, healing can look a lot different for different people, so recovery orientation is just a hopeful vision, that no matter where this person may be on the spectrum of mental health challenges, that they can have hope that there's opportunity for a better life, being able to cope with symptoms better, symptomology better, being able to live just a life full of meaning and richness. And that can look very different for different people. I remember working with a woman. who, her panic was so severe that whenever she would go to a grocery store, she would sit outside of the grocery store for one hour, unable to enter the grocery store just out of concern that there would be a shooting in the store or somebody would attack her in the store, many things that would come up. And so for that person, recovery may not be, I don't feel anxiety. Or I don't have a sense of dread when I'm nearing the need to have to go to a grocery store or have to go to a public place. But it may be a huge step when that person can spend 30 minutes in the car. Right. And then they can make that step into the store. It may mean a lot when that person can get to the point where they still are, walking with dread and anxiety, but they're able to successfully get through the store, get what they need and get home in even maybe 45 minutes. So that is just so some people that may, they may say that's not recovery. That's. that's still living with this experience. Well, for that person, their quality of life has improved. They've grown as per, as a person. They've been able to cope with their symptoms better. And so, this idea of being cured, I think, can sometimes stop us from this orientation of recovery, right? We're growing. It's a constant process on a spectrum of experiences that people may have. I think about another person who I worked with, and I think I may have shared this with you in the past, but, there was a person who I was working with, in an inpatient psychiatric setting, and this person had severely traumatic history and background, and, they had a lot of, challenges that they brought to the inpatient setting. But one thing that they cited often in groups and individual was, this relationship with their father. And so, that, it happened to be that when I was running the group, we were on forgiveness therapy. And they're talking about the stages of forgiveness and the steps of forgiveness, what forgiveness is and what forgiveness is not. And at the end, of that, session, the person decided to make the decision after deciding to choose forgiveness for themselves to then go and call their father for the first time in a long time. And that was just the very beginning, but that was a step toward recovery for that person of healing. And so some people may say, well, that person still has all these other issues. That person still experienced all these other things. Well, for that person, healing has just occurred, right? A sense of healing for that person has just occurred. And so it's in those little things, those little steps that we see recovery, we see healing occur. And sometimes we make a lot of these things, but that can be the difference for some person of living a life of meaning and a life feeling like they're stagnant, that they don't have this psychological flexibility, this capacity to grow as a person. And so. That's what immediately came to mind when I thought about healing in the context of serious mental illness. And I think everyone can have this recovery orientation, no matter if you're a clinician, no matter if you're a priest, a layperson walking with friends or family members who may experience serious mental illness. You may feel like this is over, right? What are we going to do? I never expected this. but you can still have the recovery orientation. You have good reason to have hope, no matter where that person may be in their experience.
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:Luis, thank you so much. And I think one thing that you note there that I really want to draw out in the conversation is this change from symptom management to what it means to live a full life in the midst of illness when an absolute cure just might not be possible. And a few of the things that you mentioned that I think are pretty critical there are like, This experience of meaning, this experience of hope, and also like an experience of connection with others. And so often I think we find that in experiences of mental illness, especially when it's in its most serious forms, that there can be a deep experience of despair. And of isolation, and not just for persons themselves, but also like for their loved ones and those who are trying to care for them. And so, as we think about this, like what it means to hold this vision of moving from despair toward hope, moving from isolation toward deeper connection, it seems to highlight for us also maybe huh, yeah, some of the possible role that the church can play. Yeah. Sophia, in your role, like really in looking in an integrated way at mental health and mental illness and from the standpoint of neuroscience, I wonder if you could help us think through yeah, how we would understand healing from a more integrated perspective, maybe building on some of what Lewis has shared.
Sofia Carozza, M.Phil. ’19:Thank you. Yeah, I'm so grateful you started with this question, because it gives me the chance to address a misconception about healing, which is that in the first place that those who experience mental illness have a brain that is somehow broken. And that healing therefore is quote unquote fixing it, or making it look just like the brain of someone who doesn't have that particular struggle or that particular difficulty. And This is not true. It's true that often in circumstances of mental illness, depending on the condition and the individual, we do see some neurobiological differences that are contributing factors or risk factors for their difficulty, but it's really important to say that in, in neuroscience and psychiatry, we do not understand healing as erasure of these. Differences, the elimination of them, the elimination of what in spiritual terms we'd call a wound, that's not what healing is. And I say this because there's a lot of really good research showing that there's not a one to one correlation between features of our brain structure and function and our mental health. There's no, in other words, there's no direct mapping between the neural responses that we have to traumatic events, or to personal difficulties. And our mental health, our subjective experiences, I would say, of distress. And so, yeah, so you see folks who are resilient to, difficult events or who heal from mental illness in that sense. Having that fullness of life that Lewis was talking about, perhaps even amid symptoms, but managing them or on a trajectory of recovery or, or finding meaning and purpose, even in that lived experience. they may share the very same neural features that those who are in the midst of a profound crisis and are not on a. Trajectory of health may have, so like a bigger amygdala for example, or a different organization of certain brain networks. and so it's clear that healing is not erasure of these features of the brain. So, so if not that, then what is it? And I think the word you. You use there of integration is key. I think healing from a proper neuroscience perspective would be, the integration of these neurobiological differences and difficulties into a higher level of well being. because we are embodied souls, this will likely involve changes to the brain, changes to other parts of the brain, consolidation of new networks that support new memories and beliefs. Or the formation of new patterns of activity that support, a new gaze on ourselves and on reality. So it does involve a change to the brain. And fortunately this is possible because, we didn't use to think that the brain could change. We thought it was fixed after someone left childhood. But we now know that the brain can be remodeled throughout life. This is neuroplasticity. We can have new neurons that are born and integrated into circuits. We can remodel our connections, and get rid of ones that no longer serve us. And this is how we form new memories and habits and beliefs, which of course aren't reducible to our biology, but necessarily involve our biology. So, On the level of our biology, change and healing is eminently possible throughout our life. And if we think in sort of neuroscientific terms about how this might come about, I think one important element to have in the equation for a lot of people is often a good medical care, depending on the severity of their illness, the nature of their experience, which can mean therapy. It could mean a psychoactive medication. but one really important piece of the puzzle is relationship. I think that's overarching. A lot of different paths to healing is this dimension of relationship. because we can talk about this further, perhaps later on in the conversation, but the human mind and brain, just like the human soul is intensely social. And I think we see this in particular in the healing journey. There's, some interesting research from animal studies showing that neuroplasticity is. upregulated when we're in social situations. So for example, when mice are with a bunch of other mice, more new neurons are born in their brains. and so being with each other actually helps our brains change and grow more quickly. in human children, there are studies showing that a single supportive relationship with a loving adult can protect them against the stressful effects of traumatic events early in their life. And, in adults, there's some good research showing that, the. the efficacy of the therapeutic relationship is a function even more than the kind of therapy you're receiving. It's a function of the kind of bond that you have with the clinician, with the therapist. So we see even, yeah, and in circumstances of loneliness, social connectedness is a really powerful source of a sense of meaning that can, integrate. Our woundedness into a higher level, well being. So I would say in all of these circumstances, we see how interpersonal bonds, relationships of communion are the path to healing that takes up and incorporates our neurobiology, but is definitely not reducible to just, a change that's detectable through neuroscience.
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:Sophia, what you name about, so we don't reduce mental illness to just something of the brain and at once like deeper understanding of the brain has shown us that change is possible and some of the Kind of what Lewis described in terms of, an experience of meaning, an experience of connection, being able to, engage differently with the world and not just be determined, by perhaps even the limits one has previously experienced. that we are seeing that in now. What's described as neuroplasticity within changes within the neural architecture of the brain. I, you really point to the importance of relationship and I'm just considering I am gifted with different friendships with folks who've shared with me about their life with serious mental illness and so often that life involves just An inability to take part in many relationships and forms of meaningful engagement that were just previously taken for granted, maybe before they experienced their first psychotic break, and all of a sudden they found themselves in a hospital. To all of us, whether you are at home at a hospital setting, or at home alone where they could no longer attend work or school or take part in the same activities that they once did and so it strikes me that it's an invitation then for all of us to breathe together. and I think it's really important for us to think creatively about how we continue to foster a space of community that's open and receptive. It's not just a community only open to those who are fully functioning, so to speak, but it's a community where we can really receive one another, in our respective states of life, So, and with that, perhaps that kind of opens us up Lenny then to begin to think a bit more theologically. So, given your role as a theologian and actively involved in the formation of young people and adults within the church, how might we think about healing and mental health within the life of the church?
Ryan Dainty, M.Div.:Yeah, I really love this avenue that you've opened up for us in terms of relationship and thinking of community. I think I'd like to start thinking about healing from my part by maybe restating a fundamental principle, which is that we only become fully human together. This is revealed most brilliantly and fully in the gospel. It's a fundamental truth of our human life, of our existence, that we only become fully human together. I think if we were to Imagine what the fullness of health is. We're really talking about salvation, and salvation, even the word itself, contains within it the notion of health, salut, health and well being, but the Christian perspective on salvation is always and only ever a social, let's say a corporate reality. In Christianity, there's no such thing as a merely individual salvation. That is to say, we're always saved with and for others into the body of Christ as members. And there's something perhaps even in that we have to be healed from, which is maybe these notions of an individual well being first, and then the potential for moving into some kind of social well being. It doesn't, this is a sort of fabrication, a lie you might say. So what does, with that in mind, and there's of course more to say about that, but what does healing mean then, if that is the truth? I think for now it means that healing is living as though we really were members of one another. And in the fullness of time, it means living eternally with one another in charity. So perhaps what I'm trying to nudge our consideration towards, as a community here thinking about this, is that when we think about health from a theological perspective, from the perspective of the Christian tradition, probably ought to start from this social And Corporate meaning of health and move towards individual health from there. So let me give, maybe if you don't mind, Beth, I'll give another side of this, which is coming, let's say from the practice of praying the Psalms that what we find in the Psalter is really the fullness of the human condition laid out in these 150 Psalms. You can find anything from the deepest form of lament and suffering to the highest form of even ecstatic praise and everything in between. Now, for those who might pray the Psalms regularly, you would find that on any given day, you're not praying what you personally feel right now much of the time. So, for example, if you're praying Psalm 88, you say, darkness is my only companion. Most days, that's not my condition. But I would pray that if I'm take up the practice or my enemies surround me like a herd of bulls, unless I'm trying to think of my children in this way that really my enemies are not surrounding me on most days like a herd of bulls, but for some people at that particular time, that is their condition. So for me to pray that. is to pray from their condition, as members of one another. And what I want to say is that is also healing of me, of opening myself to you. But there's also prayers to pray as if I'm offering them maybe from where I am for you. That is to say, Like Psalm 42, Why are you cast down, my soul? Why are you troubled within me? Hope in God, I will praise Him still. For some, I might pray that, but they can't pray that for themselves. So I'm praying it for them. But there will also be times, when I can't pray that for myself. I can't pray that hope and really step into it. And I need someone to pray that for me. So I think this practice of praying the Psalms gives us an image of this fullness of health and what healing might look like now and into the future. It gives us pathways to healing. That is to say from every condition to find the pathway to praise. And it also maybe is a kind of choreography that a practice of praying this way so as to learn to live this way to bear with one another for one another towards the fullness of health together and away from an individualizing notion of health.
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:Lenny, one thing that strikes me about what you shared is, so maybe a distinction that's worth being made between treatment and healing. And I was hearing themes of this within Sophia's remarks as well. Treatment, oftentimes we can focus on isolating certain symptoms and seeking to resolve those symptoms. And so we can think about it on a person by person or individualized basis. But it's remarkable, Sophia, how you've said, well, even from a perspective of understanding the brain, the mind, the whole person as an embodied soul, Healing would not just involve treatment of symptom, but a sense of the whole and the way our whole person, all these different systems, so to speak, move toward a deeper integration and how that's in and through relationship with each other. And how akin that is then to what you're talking about, Lenny, is this conception of like, how Salus, salvation, as belonging to being one body in Christ. And we can't just think of my own health and well being apart from another's. It really strikes me, yeah, this is to live the common good, to live out that communion as a people. Well, with that, I wonder if we could perhaps turn more concretely then of how do we live this? Because any knowledge, ought to be at service to action. and so taking from what Pope Benedict described, a Eucharist that does not pour itself out in concrete practices of love is intrinsically fragmented. How do we live out these concrete practices of love? I, I've just noticed in my own experiences as a friend, as a therapist, and then with folks who we share in relationship with through the FIAT program, that oftentimes when we're with someone experiencing mental illness or mental distress, we can try to help Through insufficient ways, maybe we scramble for a quick fix or to offer a solution, or maybe we respond with judgment or analysis, speaking from experience. Maybe we just respond by trying to understand the why, to make sense of it. We can also sometimes just feel overwhelmed. by the suffering of another, feel awkward, uncomfortable, by our own ability to make the situation better, and retreat, or avoid. So if those aren't manifestations of what it is to live out this call to communion and relationship with each other, then what is? How do we live better? And Lewis, you and I have talked about the need for like relationships of healthy vulnerability and support beyond just the therapist patient relationship. So, I'm really curious in terms of, even thinking from your experiences of direct care and relationship with those you support on a day to day basis, how do we translate that? What does it look for us as everyday people within the church or those who are in ministry to seek to live out better relationships of care, of friendship with those who are experiencing serious mental illness? And perhaps with their loved ones.
Ryan Dainty, M.Div.:Well,
Louis Damani Jones, M.S.W.:I think about so like the church, I have to say like a parish setting. And this is really a community. This is a place where so many individual interpersonal interactions are taking place. And that means that it's an opportunity for healing. that means just as we discussed, it's an opportunity where healing can take place. And, from an interpersonal process perspective, so many of the challenges that we have, even that may be internal, have, they have different pieces that also are connected to our relationships, connected to our experiences in relationship with others and all of those things. And so opportunities for new relationships with others opportunities for new ways of experiencing what relationship can mean that can easily happen in a parish level and easily happen without having a clinical license. I'm just through being a person that is open to that for others. I think the church has to really take this role, very seriously, because Many people enter a church and they don't feel like, some people, I'll say not many, some people feel like they come to a church and they don't have that sense of authentic relationship even with the person in the pew next to them and that's a missed opportunity. For healing. I think about in interpersonal process and other, modalities, this idea of the corrective emotional experience, right? Which is really just sometimes people may have had a wound in their past experiences where they had, some type of, something that they were trying to express and it was shut down. And they feel that's internalized this feeling of not being able to, enter into an authentic relationship and all of these things. And if the church sets aside spaces for real intimacy between others, then people in the church with lived experiences, just regular people, can be the source of that corrective emotional experience for others. just in, somebody who may struggle with feelings of not being welcomed, whether it be from their family life, whether it be from just in the community life, they come into a church and someone joyfully and authentically says, I'm so glad you're here. authentically invites them, Hey, we have this thing that we're doing, wanna come? they may have never had an invitation like that in their life. And that can be the beginning of healing for them of, Wow, maybe I am worth, maybe I am lovable. Maybe I'm someone who people want to spend time with. Right? And often it may be, you can never see someone and say, this person's experiencing a mental health challenge, or this person has a child that's currently going through psychiatric hospitalization, or this person has a child who they haven't seen, who's experiencing mental health challenges, or whatever, you can't see that. So often it's about always being on, right? Not waiting for okay, I can't wait to see someone with a mental health challenge so I can, no, you have to always be on, right? And that's challenging, but that takes internal conversion, that takes really authentic living on our own part. And that's where we can grow as the church. And as church communities that really trying to embody this. And that's a lifelong, that's a forever growth point, but churches can practically implement this by creating those opportunities for intimate engagement, because that just, the more opportunities for those interpersonal engagements you have, the higher likelihood of people having those corrective emotional experiences, those healing experiences, where they feel like, they can correct some of these maladaptive, maybe beliefs or vision schemas, if you will, of what relationship can mean within a new relationship. Right. There's some really cool chapters I read on group processes, where like in a group, it can be almost like a refamily like a new family experience right in a group setting, because you're all these different people bring these different personalities and a family don't get to choose what people are like so you have to learn how to deal with different things, and that can be healing for some people and that can be very debilitating for other people, depending on their circumstances, same thing can happen in a group process you can have people who are you know this way and that way. And sometimes that can actually be healing. You're like, wow, I never knew people could be like you, right? Not in a negative way, but I never knew people could be like you in such a beautiful way, in such a different way. And that can open up new processes, from a social perspective of just, I can be different, or maybe like this experience, like how I see it could maybe be seen a different way. I'm sure that we've all had these experiences if we've ever been in small groups of just like those different encounters that really mean a lot and they stay with you. And I think that can also be something that people experiencing, serious mental illness can also experience in terms of renewed relationship capacity and renewed meaning. So the church, it's, I know that Churches are struck with resource challenges. but these are things that are low resource, right? Often you just need time, right? And the space to set aside where you can build these relationships. Bible studies are abundant. other forms of process groups that can happen in a parish setting. Historically, churches have played a huge role with having AA meetings in their basements or things like that. And, that's obviously that special situation, but also you can build those same types of experience, those lived experience, opportunities within just the church setting. and so I think that's, that's a real practical way that churches can begin to be a vulnerable community, a community of vulnerability, where that opportunity for authentic vulnerability can manifest itself, right, in real intimate relationship. Can I
Ryan Dainty, M.Div.:follow up on that, Beth? Yeah, thanks. So I'll add something boring. Which, what Lewis is talking about makes me think of thinking and reimagining the church as a culture of mercy, and maybe a number of different smaller cultures of mercy And it reminds me of Thomas Aquinas teaching on the virtue of mercy. So this is the boring part, but bear with me for a second. He says there are two dimensions really to the full virtue of mercy. The first is aesthetic perceptivity, and the second is volitional action. By aesthetic perceptivity, he means our ability to have the passion for another, compassion for another, which is based on actually seeing them as they are. Being able to recognize, for those who suffer, the particular way in which they are suffering. But it's very difficult to hone that kind of perceptivity. It takes time, it takes learning, it takes knowledge, it takes the right kind of conditions to be able to be with each other, to in that way bear ourselves to one another. So aesthetic perceptivity Which then is completed by volitional action, the will to do something about the suffering And when we hear that, we think, well, that means to heal the suffering that is there. But many times we can't heal the particular suffering in someone else that's before us. So the volitional action means at least ensuring that someone else doesn't suffer alone. That means joining them in some way. That means accompanying, being with. And hearing what, I love what Lewis is saying there, this is a way, I think, of reimagining our parishes, our, perhaps our schools, our places of coming together to practice faith. Thinking about the conditions that we set up, not just what is said and preached there, but the kind of conditions we set up. Are we creating the kind of conditions where we can be seen and known and we can take the time, because it takes time, to see and know each other? So that knowledge might lead to love. So that's my boring add on there, but I love what Lewis is saying.
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:To be seen and to be known, and Lewis, you name like these intimate spaces, and I, intimacy is vulnerable, and particularly you used another word, Lewis, of like maladaptations, that with our symptoms we can have maladaptations, And maybe that's an experience that then a maladaptation could be others are unsafe or frightening or I can't be received by others. And so I need to draw into isolation. and so this kind of stretch of courage to be part of a community, but also the capacity of the community then to Practice what you name as that perceptivity, Leni, that ability to receive the other with open arms. And Sophia, I, in our conversations, I found, wow, there's so much like richness, even you have different ways of talking about maladaptations as actually adaptations of the person and in our striving to be whole and to be well. And so I'm wondering what you might be moved to add to, yeah, the conversation about how we live this concretely.
Sofia Carozza, M.Phil. ’19:Yeah, I, I agree. I think the idea of adaptation to our circumstances is a really freeing one in the context of mental health, to look at our personal history and our journey with curiosity and to see how certain, behaviors and beliefs that we have might have helped us, in a sense, in a certain challenge or a certain challenge. adverse context. I study children who have experienced abuse and neglect and the impact on their brain structure. So that's the perspective from which I'm coming at this. But a lot of the behaviors that we see, after those kinds of experiences can be protective against future harm for those who are living in adverse environments. And I think to a lesser extent, a lot of us can, Can fall into a similar pattern of learning from our environment, beliefs and behaviors that don't actually suit our wellbeing, on a holistic level. they don't make it easy to live in fruitful relationships of communion with other people. though they might have protected us in previous environments and, yeah. And so having that gaze of curiosity can help us identify and let go of those Perhaps maladaptive beliefs that, that in the end, aren't what we want for our lives now, but to be patient with the process, knowing that our minds and our bodies are not broken. They were trying to keep us safe, when we faced difficult experiences in the past.
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:And along those lines that so often those adaptations, right? They're not cognitive. They're operating at like a deep level of our nervous system's response to environment and then how that operates within our person as an embodied soul. And so I think one of the things I've learned from you is it's not as simple as like having the cognitive recognition of, Oh, this is unsafe. So I'm going to act in this way. The gift of therapy is that it can help us bring to a level of an awareness, oh, these are actually ways I've adapted to environment and experience, which isn't just. Sometimes we overly attribute mental health causation to like family dynamics, but it's complex. the, we'll never get quite to the bottom of why any one of us would experience mental illness. and at once the interaction of environment of early child experiences. of just what it is to live in a person in this day and age where there's a lot of individualism and isolation that isn't healthy for a developing nervous system, a developing embodied soul. And so we have these then adaptations which end up not being fully adaptive, but they're the way we're surviving within context. Perhaps if we could return to this thought of seeing oneself and others through a gaze of mercy, and Lenny, I know you've done some fascinating work with students here at the University of just learning to tell our stories within a broader story of the Paschal Mystery, Christ's life, death, and resurrection, and The life of the church and how sharing stories can actually be a powerful means of coming to experience that we're not alone in this and so I'm wondering any kind of thoughts you might have too about yeah, what it looks like to share our stories in a parish context.
Ryan Dainty, M.Div.:Yeah, no, thanks for that, Beth. the particular work that kind of started this was working especially with young people, college students, sometimes high school students, in identifying and crafting and perhaps even telling what we would call stories of grace, which are stories of God's action in your life. Now, there's some things that have to be moved away from in order to really talk about grace as grace. Grace is not, as Flannery O'Connor would call it, the instant uplift. Just that which comes over and just smooths everything out without getting, getting dirty in any way. When we're talking about grace and God's action in our lives, we're talking about ourselves as the object of God's merciful descent. And when God responds to suffering, to illness, to evil, it's not a response with an explanation, it's a response with an action, which is to draw near, to join in. To heal sometimes slowly, but all parts from the bottom up. So for us to be able to name grace in our lives means to really look honestly, and it takes some courage at what is really there in our life. But there's an education, a kind of formation, I think, for people that we've tried to provide as much as we can in knowing and being able to recognize the signs of grace, what grace is. To be able to claim those, that movement of grace within your own narrative, within your own memory, within your own life. I think part of that process of actually crafting a story, because the story is not just there. You actually have to craft it. You have to take some ownership of it. See the beginning, the middle, and the end. Allow grace to be the narrative thread in that. To be able to do that is a form of empowerment. It's a form of Kind of mercy towards yourself, I would say, but then to be able in appropriate ways for different people to share that with others. It's also a gift of the witness of grace in this life, in my life. It's an invitation to others to see you in a different way, but also perhaps to reflect on themselves in a different way. So, we've really tried to craft these communities around this practice, right? Because you need a kind of community that allows you to create these stories, to tell these stories, to receive these stories, and to reciprocate. And I think, going back to some of the things we're talking about, that is a particular kind of culture of mercy. Small cultures, more intimate, knowledgeable, where some of these risks and vulnerabilities can be tried.
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:That is really striking. I find so often, boy, with mental illness and serious suffering, we can just end up staying in the question of why. Like, why am I suffering? why would God allow this? What biochemical causes, environmental causes have contributed to this? But we can get stuck in that place of why, and it can be a place of deepening despair and isolation. I think what I hear you saying is to that question of why, God doesn't respond with an answer. I've heard you say this before, but he responds with his person. By suffering with us by drawing close. And so that this kind of stories of grace is a way of supporting one another in seeing when it feels very hard to see, and very hard to experience like how God is suffering with us in those moments.
Ryan Dainty, M.Div.:And I think it speaks something to those of us who might be in a position to serve people who are suffering particularly with mental illness in other ways too. Part of our charge, I think, is to help those who are suffering to receive the God who freely moves towards them in their suffering. actually to help them be in that place to receive that. But then I think also to empower or maybe re empower those who help. the sufferers, to be conformed to this divine movement. That is to say, to move ourselves towards others who suffer, to join them, to accompany them, to empower them, to be, to bear with them. That itself is a sign of God's movement towards them.
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:This being able to move with and so we're closing in on our final few minutes of our chance to reflect together before we open into active Q& A. And so, Lewis and Sophia would love to offer you the chance for any final thoughts of yeah, how we do that, how we walk with one another in the midst of suffering. And also in hope of a healing that is somewhat already in the possibility to move into deeper relationship with one another, but a healing that's also not yet a healing that we'll never fully experience until we're ultimately experiencing the glory of the resurrection and our ultimate communion in heaven.
Sofia Carozza, M.Phil. ’19:I think one thought that I'd like to conclude with is just an invitation, for our listeners to ponder the own needs and expectations that they have structurally and how they were created. and this is something that spans levels of explanation. I study it on the level of the nervous system, but in particular, the need and the expectation of our brains and bodies and spirits for relationship, relationship building. To be embraced. And this is something that we see in neuroscience drives the development of the nervous system from the very first day. It's relationship with the parents that serves as a scaffold for the structure and function of the brain, but throughout life, we only understand the world and ourselves and can act in it,
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:in relationship with others.
Sofia Carozza, M.Phil. ’19:And we see this in the brain. so to understand, to ponder this need. and to ponder the fact that this is my own need, as well as the need of the person in front of me. I at least experience as a profound invitation to, to humility and to receptivity, and to curiosity, because the person in front of me then is not, a duty. or an obligation, let alone a burden, but actually the path to my own experience of the divine coming to meet me and to answer the need of my heart for, for him. And in my own experiences of mental illness and of accompanying people with mental illness, this is hard. it takes a lot of listening and humility and reverence for the mystery of people's interior lives. and forgiveness. but I find that all of these sacrifices that are asked of us in order to really live as members of the body of Christ are the path to our own fulfillment as well. and so starting from our own desires, from awareness of our own brokenness, awareness of our dependence, but our desire to experience Already now, as you said, it's not going to be fulfilled until heaven, but Jesus promises the hundredfold to those who follow him here below. And starting from our own desires for that hundredfold, I find is the only thing that can sustain us in, in entering into the burdens of others and carrying them with that, with them and into the vulnerability that enables us to share our burdens with others, which is sometimes even
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:harder. Yeah. To really receive the gift of another person. Because so often with illness, our vision of our person comes, just focuses on the illness and the sight of suffering and what you're saying about to see the fullness of the person as gift and to receive, the way in which Christ is uniquely meeting you through the gift of their person. Yeah. Lewis, I'm wondering if, yeah, anything's coming up for you as we round out our time together today. I just think
Louis Damani Jones, M.S.W.:about the importance of avoiding the trap of Job's friends, because Job's friends, they had some struggles, in terms of their accompaniment, with others who were experiencing suffering. And what was that? Trap of Job's friends looking and it can so often this is what we can look like this is what many people we it's a common human experience but we want to give someone a boilerplate answer based on our understanding of what's of why they're going through what they're going through and We saw the disastrous results of multiplying Job's sufferings, right, where most, a small part of the story is his experience of the sufferings, and a larger part is how people extend his suffering by trying to explain why and how he deserves the suffering and why this happens. And that's a trap that we can fall into as we accompany people as people in the church, as lay people, as people in our families, right? We have these opportunities within our family structures to encounter people, or make small communities to encounter people who may be experiencing this and how often do we have this writing reflex, right? The desire to write. The wrong in someone else, as we see it, and that's something that we have to resist in ourselves and that takes work. And I contrast the Job friend trap with the experience of the Good Samaritan as Pope Francis lays out and also what he speaks out in what Christ speaks out in more detail in the Gospels of going the extra mile, right, giving the extra amount. Which can, doesn't have to necessarily mean giving materially, although it definitely could and should at different points, but it can also just mean your time, can also just mean that ear, can also just mean like presence, right? When maybe it's a little bit uncomfortable to be present, and maybe coming up, some things may be coming up for you as someone is sharing, but you just sitting with that and saying, I'm offering this stuff up to listen to you, not to write your experience, but just to be present with you and to show you that you are worthy of my time, you're worthy of my presence. I think can go a long way and you don't need a license, you don't need to be a professional, you need to know everything about what mental health challenges consist of. All you need to do is be present with others. And, and that often takes growth in ourselves, no matter where we're at, because it's tough to do tough things. but it's also worth worthwhile as Sophia was mentioning, it's so worthwhile to grow for ourselves in that merciful listening ear. in that work of mercy, of just being with others and listening to others, in their sufferings.
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:Beautiful. Well, friends, with that, we conclude our recorded portion of the webinar and we'll move into some live Q& A. So thanks for the questions that you've submitted already and we'll continue on with our dialogue. All right, friends. So, yeah, again, thank you for the questions that you've sent in, and as you'll see, we're now transitioned into our live portion, and one of the questions that we received from our attendees from Reverend Catherine Green McCrate, who's been a great advisor to the FIAT program, is a question about forgiveness. And so, Reverend Green McCrate, Raises the question, could you say something more about the stages of forgiveness in the healing of mental affliction and mental illness? And so as we're thinking about forgiveness, certainly it ties into different themes that we've spoken to around mercy. I also think perhaps it's worth speaking to the sacramental life of the church and how forgiveness is expressed in and through the sacramental life, and so wondering whether one of our speakers would be open to getting us started around this question around stages of forgiveness.
Louis Damani Jones, M.S.W.:I'll jump in just because I talked about, forgiveness therapy. So that was developed by Dr. Robert Enright. And so I'm not endorsing him as a person, I'm just speaking on kind of this therapy, and I'll talk a little bit about the stages that he has. He talks about first this uncovering phase where you really have to understand what the wounds you experienced were. And again, this is a process based looking at forgiveness but You have to uncover and actually understand what are some of the wounds that I experienced from this hurt, what I actually have to deal with and sit with, what my wounds are, almost take account of them. and then from there, you actually start on the process of actually making the decision to forgive. And a big part of the forgiveness therapy literature and talk and, therapeutic process is about helping people understand what forgiveness is and what forgiveness is not. Forgiveness, is not necessarily reconciliation. that's, they're, they can, they're connected and we can talk about that sacramentally. however, there, there's a distinction at person. Maybe you're going to make the decision to forgive, but maybe someone harms you so severely. That you cannot reconcile with them. You cannot go back into entering into relationship with them. And so that's a big barrier for a lot of people in the group. They're like, oh, this person harmed me so much, that I can't ever speak to them again. But helping people to understand it's actually a decision. And so you get to the decision phase and you help people really wrestle with, okay, Why should you forgive? Why should you not forgive? Right? And have people really make that decision so that they can make the commitment. Because the next stage is the work phase. And every time you hear work in therapy, you're like, oh no, this is gonna get real. And that is what happens, right? You have to understand actually like this other person. That's what you have to understand. The other person, like what? What may have caused them to do this? Like you actually have to try to seek to understand them. And then the final phase, which is like a permanent phase, if you will, is deepening. where you actually start to like reconcile with your emotions because the decision and the emotions are not the same either. You can decide to forgive and you may not feel like you forgive. And so, after you understand the person a little bit, in the work phase, then you can start to get to the point where you can work through your emotions and start to actually empathize with the other person and see maybe not, you're not justifying it. That's another important thing to say. It's not justifying something that's wrong happening. But you're really able to say, okay, I have greater empathy for this person. I'm coming to a place where my emotions are starting to be on the healing process. so that's just a little bit about forgiveness therapy, and the work on forgiveness that's done from that perspective. but I'm sure some other panelists can, also connect that to the sacramental part, which I think for us as Catholics is so unique and special, and I think is integral, right, to this process, as it relates to our faith.
Sofia Carozza, M.Phil. ’19:Absolutely.
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:Thanks, Lewis. And, yeah, thanks for mentioning the work of Dr. Enright, who's been such a, contributor to the field in terms of our understanding about forgiveness. Lenny, I'm wondering if you'd be open to sharing some just about forgiveness within the sacramental life of our church.
Ryan Dainty, M.Div.:I'd be happy to, Beth. So, a few things that just come to mind, briefly are, at least within the Catholic tradition and the sacrament of Reconciliation Confession, the way in which, the needs for forgiveness sins are addressed, faced, personally, with another, and the way in which there becomes A memory, an actual embodied memory of the moment of forgiveness. The importance, I think, of that to the healing of memory. Something to go back to, something to respond to, something to actually feel and touch. But I also, in thinking about these stages of, forgiveness and the work from there, as Lewis was speaking of it, I think about the transition between forgiveness and reconciliation, especially the forgiveness between, from one person to another, from one person to a community or a family, a family to a person, that forgiveness is. Thank you. I'm just thinking a little bit broadly here. Forgiveness is the permission granted by the one who's been wounded for the one who has wounded to have a new chapter, to not be strictly identified with the harm done. So the power of the one who's been wounded actually to grant something, but it also we know to seek forgiveness for the one who has been wounded, it also empowers them. To have a new chapter to not be closed in on this wound, but the reconciliation I would see as something new that must be built together or come from that place of woundedness. that we see this very clearly in the way in which Christ comes to his disciples on the other side of the crucifixion on, on, in the resurrection, it is precisely his wounds that he presents to them, and they are the ones who in large degree are responsible for those wounds, but it's out of those wounds that peace is offered, and their mission is given to them, something new must be built. And so I wonder if, That's a place of reflection for us, past today in terms of the moments of forgiveness that must lead to something new being built together, something that comes out of those wounds. And perhaps then is the continuing healing of memory.
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:As we're talking about this, we've been talking about experiences of forgivenesses, forgiveness toward another, or even toward ourself when we recognize maybe a wrong that we've done that's been wounding to Christ or to another. But I think what, Reverend Green McCrate brought forward that's important and perhaps even more challenging too is what is forgiveness in the midst of The mystery of illness, when we're experiencing mental illness, what does it mean for us to have a gaze of mercy and love toward our own self? And Sophia, you were touching upon this in your remarks earlier, when talking about gazing at your own self with Curiosity. I'm wondering if anything's coming up for you that you'd be open to sharing with the group of this gaze of mercy.
Sofia Carozza, M.Phil. ’19:Yeah, thank you. I so appreciate what my fellow panelists have said about forgiveness on this topic. I think in terms of forgiveness and exactly as you pointed out, it's in my experience often something that it's my receipt of mercy that enables me to take steps along this path of forgiving others. and one thing that has helped me a lot in this cultivating this gaze of curiosity and mercy towards myself and thus also to others is, is the definition of hope, which in, In Spesalvi, Pope Benedict XVI's wonderful encyclical, he talks about how it's a certainty in the future rooted in a hope that an experience that you have in the present, a certainty in the future that's rooted in the experience of the present. And in my experience, even in the times of Mental illness of my own or that of others that I've most been full of, darkness and, the temptation to despair. There has always been a presence there, upon which I can build, that can give me A certainty that makes me look forward to the future with hope. and so looking for, no matter how small those kernels are, but those seeds of certainty that are present in our hearts, in a friend who remains faithful to us, or in the possibility of receiving the sacraments, or whatever it is that, that The Lord sends us in those moments. I think that's the place, upon which we can build when we're trying to forgive and take steps along this path, because it can seem daunting when you look at, I can't forgive, I don't think I can go down that road, but to look at the certainties that you already have, the small seeds that are already present, I find is the most fruitful starting
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:place. Thank you. Another question that came up within the group was how can we help our brothers and sisters who are experiencing mental illness know that their identity and worth comes from being a beloved child of God and not how well they function? Wondering if any of our panelists would be open to starting with a response to that question. I can get us started, Beth.
Ryan Dainty, M.Div.:Thanks, Lenny. From my perspective, I think one of the keys here is to, for those who are in the position to communicate that to someone, to communicate their belovedness, is actually to allow ourselves to enter into the divine way. What do I mean by that? The divine way is the consistent movement of God as testified in scripture and the tradition, that when there is a plea for help, When there is a cry of suffering, the response is for God to move towards the one who is suffering in person. And I think for those of us who find ourselves in that intimate and privileged position of being able to communicate to someone else their belovedness, we enter into and we're called to enter into that divine way. That is to say, to move towards the person who's suffering in precisely the way they're suffering. Unlike God, we cannot heal all the suffering that is there. We can't take it on and make it well all the time, but we can make that approach. And I'm speaking in broad terms here because of course we'd have to think about the particular person in the particular situation, but I think that's something, that is something that we might Reflect on more deeply is how do we allow ourselves to be inducted more fully into that divine way to hear what the actual cry for help is, to perceive it well, and to move towards. So this really resounds or redounds back to what I was saying earlier in the recorded version about mercy.
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:And what you're speaking of it reminds me, so there was a great comment from Dr. Greg Popchack that I reposted within the Q& A, and he's inviting us as we reflect on the corporal and spiritual works of mercy to reflect also on to what end, that these works of mercy are always ordered toward Gazing upon the other with the gaze of Christ so that they can be able to gaze on their own person with that same love and compassion and mercy and time and Dr. Greg making it made an important point to have just noting like boundaries within that role are also important, knowing what is our role and what is not our role in caring for the other and honoring their. Freedom, even if their experience of freedom is bruised and wounded within that, because it's knowing what is our work and what is not, and that it's ultimately then moving, I hope, God willing, toward an experience of deepening communion, deepening integration, but that the timeline is not ours. The contours of the path are not ours to choose. I'm wondering, Louis or Sofia, what's coming up for you as we Yeah, I just
Sofia Carozza, M.Phil. ’19:wanted to add I, I think this is a lie as old as humanity. that's particularly tempting this idea that our worth isn't in how we function that's particularly tempting in Western capitalist modernity. And I find that In my experience, both of research, on children who have experienced abuse and neglect and are suffering from neurodevelopmental disorders, but also my personal experience, that, broadening spaces to include people with diverse abilities can be really helpful for everyone involved in learning to, find their true value and their worth, not in how they function, but in their identity as a child of God. And I think those. Just as a personal example, I've volunteered throughout my time here in Cambridge during my PhD in a community that's like L'Arche and, so works with folks with intellectual disabilities who often experience, heightened emotional distress as well. And it's been, often, it seems to work out that the hardest days of my PhD were days when I was schedule to go in and have dinner with them or have tea with them and it's been incredibly powerful and beautiful to see how educated I've been by their gaze on me to look at myself differently and to accept my suffering, in that, in my limitations and my difficulties. And to not look away from it, but to share it freely with them, knowing that they weren't going to be scandalized, just as I wasn't scandalized by their limitations and their difficulty. And, in an environment such as Cambridge, as Notre Dame is, and many of our communities, it's very, it was very radical to have that experience. And I think cultivating spaces like that within the church is really important, for all of us, so that we can learn from one another and learn from the gaze that, that others direct towards us.
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:Sophia, piggybacking off that, I'd love to just speak practically, like, how might we better identify what some of the barriers are within our way of coming together as a church community, barriers, to those experiencing serious mental illness or disability in another form from experiencing community and belonging, so that it's not only a church for the well functioning, So to speak. and Lewis, as you were, talking before in the recorded portion, you were noting, it's not that we're on the lookout for someone experiencing mental illness, it's that we're always on the lookout for the other and how we receive them. And so, wondering if you could even speak practically of, maybe some of the steps that you've taken already to, Beyond what you've noted, Sophia, but to foster this belonging, this community to maybe identify and overcome certain barriers.
Louis Damani Jones, M.S.W.:Well, I think one of the big things is, is yeah, like reiterating what I said before, you can't see someone and say this person is going through, a mental health challenge or this person has a history of that or their family's experiencing that. And it is about, always having that view. I want to invite someone. Seeing someone who is in any way on the margins of a community, going out of your way to try to invite them. If you're more plugged in, if you have more, if you're more attached to that community and you want to bring them in, that's, that invitation in itself can help to alleviate for that person the anxiety of I shouldn't be here. I don't belong here. And so I think, I talked too about the corrective emotional experience. That invitation is healing. Going out of yourself to give that invitation. And some, you may have anxiety. You may say, I don't, I'm really bad at talking to people. I don't want to make this awkward. But you have to say hey, maybe my awkwardness, maybe me feeling this awkwardness or this anxiety, maybe it'll be worth it if this person feels less. Right? just thinking about how you can be the person who helps to build more of a community. having, inviting, starting small group studies of different kinds of small group opportunities. there's just a lot of discussion put out by the Surgeon General and others just about the epidemic of loneliness as it was discussed. and if you see all that and you hear, how some of these issues are connected to people's greater experiences of anxiety and depression, especially looked at adolescence, many things is multifactorial, but a lot of people are drawing connections there. the churches are really the front lines. and even in that, that document, that was put out the advisory document, it talks about that and both the first and the last pillars that really we have to have, a renaissance of values, if you will, of connectedness, respect, kindness towards others, love towards others. Sounds familiar, like Christianity and all the values that we're supposed to live in our church lives. And so I think it's really about, re understanding our own values and trying to live those out in the parish context. And it's hard to give a prescription because it is so diverse. Parish context can look different if you're like on a college campus context. If you're, in a small rural town, like in Southern Illinois, there's a different context for what small group community looks like or what community looks like at the parish level, but the invitation is universal. Calling people in is universal and going out of yourself and being the one who says I want a more welcoming community here in the church. So be the person who does that and facilitates that. and then helps help that to spread to others. and often that's, again, that's the burden person trying to reach out to right that's not saying you don't experience challenges like it's not hard for you and you don't wish you had more community or more of this type of community will be the person that starts. And I think that goes a long way to transforming parishes there's many parishes were just a few people. So I think it is, it's something that has to look different based on different communities, but I would say the power of the invitation, the power of being always on and seeing like, where are people at in my parish? If I see this person always shows up at mass and nobody's talking to them, or I see this person who maybe comes to a meeting and they feel like nobody's talking to them at the meeting. It's all those small things that really help to build that culture of welcoming. and I think helps to, To pare down that epidemic of loneliness that we're experiencing and then often will lead to people feeling more belonging in their parish context. If they have issues and they need to ask for help, that's the relationship in which they'll be more willing to do so as well.
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:Beautiful, Lewis. Thank you. Lenny, did you have something to add to that?
Ryan Dainty, M.Div.:Yes, as a global comment for our parishes and other communities, but maybe especially for our parish, The importance of having a place for belonging probably begins with the willingness of those who are parishioners to actually be there. And I mean in person, right? it's hard to, the irony of this is we're talking over Zoom, right? And I'm about to make this comment about digital technology, but It's really hard to just spend time waiting on a screen for someone else to let down their defenses to really settle in. The investment, perhaps, in our parishes is the investment that would begin with us actually spending more time there. And I don't mean just sitting in the pews, though that's important. actually making this again. a place that is a center of our social and communal lives so that we can be found there, we can be encountered there, and other people can encounter us in real space, in real time there. I just think practically speaking, It's a lot more likely and a lot more possible to wait with somebody, to waste time with others, to actually create an embodied community when you're in an actual space together. That's a hard cost to pay in our day and age. It's inefficient, but maybe that's part of the call of the gospel is to be inefficient with our time in that way, to invest. in real, in flesh, embodied community with one another.
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:Yeah, the inefficiency, and yet fruits born when we are together. I, we teach a class for undergrads here on faith and mental health, and one of the things we'll often say is we're human beings, not human doings. And so how do we cultivate that shared presence? I, I think one other thing that has been important in our work with ministers is reminding them, notice your relationship with each other as well. What are your relationships, Among fellow ministers, among fellow teachers that you're serving in a school system, among colleagues within your family. Christ never sent out the apostles one by one. He sent us out two by two because the way is relationship. Our Lord didn't give us a particular program or set of tools or techniques, but he did give us his person and The living sacramental reality of the church, which is the embodiment of Christ's presence and our gift of being together with each other. I, I know that we're closing in on our time and I'll offer a few final comments. There was one question though, Lenny about the stories of grace and someone had said they're very interested in Perhaps offering an experience like Stories of Grace within their own community and wanted to learn more. If there were any particular resources or books that you could recommend.
Ryan Dainty, M.Div.:surprise, panel, panelist writes a book on what he's talking about. So, I wrote this book, Witness, learning to craft and tell the stories of grace that illumine our lives, which is really for, ministers and educators to help them empower others, in this, In this work of crafting, claiming, crafting, and then creating the opportunities to share stories of grace, actually, literally, right now, two floors below me, there is a group of undergrads who are offering their stories of grace as part of a leadership development program that we have. If people would like some additional information about like how to create maybe these Like within the context of prayer, how to create that, that opportunity for people. Maybe, Beth, we can share, some things that I have from things that we've done here at Notre Dame, and I'd be happy to follow up with people as well. Absolutely,
Beth Hlabse '11, M.S., LMHCA:Lenny. Thank you. And with that, I regret that we don't have time to address every one of your wonderful questions that you shared. So thank you for your questions. We do. We are grateful. As we prepare to close for today, though, please know of our Thanksgiving with you. Your being present with us for this Zoom reflects that you're answering that call, that fiat to better live this community and to care for our community. Our body of Christ here on earth. It is the vision and mission of the FIAT program to continue to generate materials in the form of, courses and resources that can support you in your respective ministries, whether you serve the church directly or whether you're an educator. Or whether you're a friend or family member. So we have some virtual course offerings. We just finished our virtual course for the spring, but we'll offer another course in the coming fall. And then we have other opportunities that'll be forthcoming like webinars and like other resources. So if you haven't already, please do feel free to sign up on our website to keep up to date with future resources. And we hope, to gather again. At least virtually, and that you all can gather with one another and your communities to continue to cultivate this culture of belonging within our church. So, many thanks, and thank you to our panelists.